An eye is a sensory organ that allows an organism to perceive visual information. It detects light and converts it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons (neurones). It is part of an organism's visual system.
Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vision compared to many animals such as cats, dogs, foxes and rabbits, in part because the human eye lacks a tapetum lucidum, tissue behind the retina that reflects light back through the retina thus increasing the light available to the photoreceptors.
The tapetum lucidum is a layer of tissue in the eye of many vertebrates and some other animals. Lying immediately behind the retina, it is a retroreflector. It reflects visible light back through the retina, increasing the light available to the photoreceptors.
Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spiders have some of the best vision among arthropods and use it in courtship, hunting, and navigation. Although they normally move unobtrusively and fairly slowly, most species are capable of very agile jumps, notably when hunting, but sometimes in response to sudden threats or crossing long gaps. Both their book lungs and tracheal system are well-developed, and they use both systems. Jumping spiders are generally recognized by their eye pattern. All jumping spiders have four pairs of eyes, with the anterior median pair being particularly large.
Mantis shrimp are carnivorous marine crustaceans of the order Stomatopoda. Stomatopods branched off from other members of the class Malacostraca around 400 million years ago. Mantis shrimp typically grow to around 10 cm (3.9 in) in length, while a few can reach up to 38 cm (15 in). A mantis shrimp's carapace covers only the rear part of the head and the first four segments of the thorax. Varieties range in colour from shades of brown to vivid colours, with more than 520 species of mantis shrimp known. They are among the most important predators in many shallow, tropical and subtropical marine habitats. However, despite being common, they are poorly understood, as many species spend most of their lives sheltering in burrows and holes.
A compound eye is a visual organ found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. It may consist of thousands of ommatidia, which are tiny independent photoreception units that consist of a cornea, lens, and photoreceptor cells which distinguish brightness and color. The image perceived by this arthropod eye is a combination of inputs from the numerous ommatidia, which are oriented to point in slightly different directions. Compared with single-aperture eyes, compound eyes have poor image resolution; however, they possess a very large view angle and the ability to detect fast movement and, in some cases, the polarization of light. Because a compound eye is made up of a collection of ommatidia, each with its own lens, light will enter each ommatidium instead of using a single entrance point. The individual light receptors behind each lens are then turned on and off due to a series of changes in the light intensity during movement or when an object is moving, creating a flicker-effect known as the flicker frequency, which is the rate at which the ommatidia are turned on and off– this facilitates faster reaction to movement; honey bees respond in 0.01s compared with 0.05s for humans.
The compound eyes of arthropods like insects, crustaceans and millipedes are composed of units called ommatidia. An ommatidium contains a cluster of photoreceptor cells surrounded by support cells and pigment cells. The outer part of the ommatidium is overlaid with a transparent cornea. Each ommatidium is innervated by one axon bundle and provides the brain with one picture element. The brain forms an image from these independent picture elements. The number of ommatidia in the eye depends upon the type of arthropod and range from as low as 5 as in the Antarctic isopod Glyptonotus antarcticus, or a handful in the primitive Zygentoma, to around 30,000 in larger Anisoptera dragonflies and some Sphingidae moths.
Aphonopelma is a genus of tarantulas native to the Americas. It includes nearly all the North American tarantula species north of Mexico and a considerable percentage of the tarantula species that range into Central America. Most are fairly large tarantulas with leg spans of 6 in (16 cm) or more. Like most New World tarantulas, all species of Aphonopelma have urticating hairs. Despite their fearsome appearance, these tarantulas are not harmful to humans and some species are popular in the pet trade. With about 90 species described so far, Aphonopelma comprises about 10% of the total number of described tarantula species. However, their taxonomy is poorly understood and species are difficult to tell apart, especially those that are brown or black without other pattern. Therefore, the actual number of species is unknown, with more species likely to be identified in the near future. In captivity, they are usually fed crickets; in the wild, they eat most insects, including crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, mantises, and beetles.
A simple eye or ocellus is a form of eye or an optical arrangement which has a single lens without the sort of elaborate retina that occurs in most vertebrates. These eyes are called "simple" to distinguish them from "compound eyes", which have multiple lenses. They are not necessarily simple in the sense of being uncomplicated or basic.
Many scientists have found the evolution of the eye attractive to study because the eye distinctively exemplifies an analogous organ found in many animal forms. Simple light detection is found in bacteria, single-celled organisms, plants and animals. Complex, image-forming eyes have evolved independently several times.
Cat senses are adaptations that allow cats to be highly efficient predators. Cats are good at detecting movement in low light, have an acute sense of hearing and smell, and their sense of touch is enhanced by long whiskers that protrude from their heads and bodies. These senses evolved to allow cats to hunt effectively at dawn and dusk.
The equine eye is one of the largest of any land mammal. Its visual abilities are directly related to the animal's behavior; for example, it is active during both day and night, and it is a prey animal. Both the strengths and weaknesses of the horse's visual abilities should be taken into consideration when training the animal, as an understanding of the horse's eye can help to discover why the animal behaves the way it does in various situations.
Aphonopelma chalcodes, commonly known as the western desert tarantula, desert blonde tarantula, Arizona blonde tarantula or Mexican blonde tarantula, is a species of spider belonging to the family Theraphosidae. It has a limited distribution in the deserts of Arizona and adjacent parts of Mexico but can be very common within this range. The common name "blonde tarantula" refers to the carapace, which is densely covered in pale hairs, and contrasts strongly with the all-dark legs and abdomen. Additionally, these spiders have low toxicity, a long life expectancy, and several offspring.
Vision is the most important sense for birds, since good eyesight is essential for safe flight. Birds have a number of adaptations which give visual acuity superior to that of other vertebrate groups; a pigeon has been described as "two eyes with wings". Birds are theropods, and the avian eye resembles that of other sauropsids, with ciliary muscles that can change the shape of the lens rapidly and to a greater extent than in the mammals. Birds have the largest eyes relative to their size in the animal kingdom, and movement is consequently limited within the eye's bony socket. In addition to the two eyelids usually found in vertebrates, bird's eyes are protected by a third transparent movable membrane. The eye's internal anatomy is similar to that of other vertebrates, but has a structure, the pecten oculi, unique to birds.
Mammals normally have a pair of eyes. Although mammalian vision is not so excellent as bird vision, it is at least dichromatic for most of mammalian species, with certain families possessing a trichromatic color perception.
Apposition eyes are the most common form of eye, and are presumably the ancestral form of compound eye. They are found in all arthropod groups, although they may have evolved more than once within this phylum. Some annelids and bivalves also have apposition eyes. They are also possessed by Limulus, the horseshoe crab, and there are suggestions that other chelicerates developed their simple eyes by reduction from a compound starting point. Some caterpillars appear to have evolved compound eyes from simple eyes in the opposite fashion.
Cephalopods, as active marine predators, possess sensory organs specialized for use in aquatic conditions. They have a camera-type eye which consists of an iris, a circular lens, vitreous cavity, pigment cells, and photoreceptor cells that translate light from the light-sensitive retina into nerve signals which travel along the optic nerve to the brain. For the past 140 years, the camera-type cephalopod eye has been compared with the vertebrate eye as an example of convergent evolution, where both types of organisms have independently evolved the camera-eye trait and both share similar functionality. Contention exists on whether this is truly convergent evolution or parallel evolution. Unlike the vertebrate camera eye, the cephalopods' form as invaginations of the body surface, and consequently the cornea lies over the top of the eye as opposed to being a structural part of the eye. Unlike the vertebrate eye, a cephalopod eye is focused through movement, much like the lens of a camera or telescope, rather than changing shape as the lens in the human eye does. The eye is approximately spherical, as is the lens, which is fully internal.
The Texas brown tarantula, Aphonopelma hentzi, also known as the Oklahoma brown tarantula or Missouri tarantula, is one of the most common species of tarantula living in the Southern United States today. Texas brown tarantulas can grow to leg spans in excess of 10 cm (4 in), and weigh more than 85 g (3 oz) as adults. Their bodies are dark brown, though shades may vary between individual tarantulas. The colors are more distinct after a molt, as with many arthropods.
This glossary describes the terms used in formal descriptions of spiders; where applicable these terms are used in describing other arachnids.
Vision is an important sensory system for most species of fish. Fish eyes are similar to the eyes of terrestrial vertebrates like birds and mammals, but have a more spherical lens. Birds and mammals normally adjust focus by changing the shape of their lens, but fish normally adjust focus by moving the lens closer to or further from the retina. Fish retinas generally have both rod cells and cone cells, and most species have colour vision. Some fish can see ultraviolet and some are sensitive to polarised light.
